The Moments in Between 1
by Fayza Banks
Summary: What happened between the scenes we saw in Spearhead from Space? Liz's pov on her first impressions of UNIT and a certain Brigadier. *COMPLETE*
1. Chapter 1

He wasn't what she was expecting.

When Liz Shaw had been seconded – or, as she was inclined to think of it, _drafted_ – to UNIT, she had formed a mental image of the man whose name was neatly typed at the bottom of the correspondence. Brigadier A.G. Lethbridge-Stewart, she thought, would doubtless prove to be a short, fat, bald little man in an ill-fitting uniform, who had nothing better to do than sit behind a desk all day shouting orders at hapless subordinates, and wondering whether he would make General before he retired. She loathed him already, even before she stepped out of the car that had brought her from Cambridge to the underground car park beneath St Pancras Station.

Really, the level of security was quite ridiculous, especially since she'd already signed the Official Secrets Act_. This man must be paranoid!_ she thought, as she stepped through one last checkpoint and followed the guard along the corridor towards the door at the end. A tall, good-looking, dark haired officer stood outside it – the Brigadier's adjutant, Liz guessed, probably waiting to usher her inside to meet the man himself.

"Miss Shaw?" he said, as she approached, "I'm Lethbridge-Stewart. Do come in."

Liz shook his hand automatically, too surprised to respond immediately to his introduction. Despite the moustache – and the rows of medal ribbons on his chest – he looked ridiculously young to be a Brigadier. As she sat down, she mentally relabelled him 'ambitious bastard', and launched into the tirade she'd prepared.

"Is all this security really necessary?"

He leafed through her file (_where on earth had he got that from?_ she wondered). He spun her a yarn about impossible meteorites. He made her laugh out loud with claims of alien invasions – though his eyes flashed a very steely blue when she so clearly disbelieved him.

"I'm not in the habit of lying, Miss Shaw."

He really did seem to be sincere, and Liz wondered if this was all part of some strange test. Then the phone on his desk rang and, after a brief conversation that seemed to be about an abandoned police box, he stood up to go.

And somehow, before Liz had time to think about objection or refusal, she had been ushered back outside the building and into the back of a waiting car.

* * *

As the car pulled out onto Euston Road, Liz took up her cudgel again. "So. Alien invasions," she said, folding her arms as she settled back against the leather upholstery, "Do tell."

"I'll show you the files when we get back," said the Brigadier, obviously hearing the disbelief in her voice, "But in a nutshell: you remember the nerve gas attack on the London Underground five years ago?"

"Yes, of course. The whole of central London was closed for weeks! Are you saying…?"

"Nerve gas was the cover story," he said, matter-of-factly, "The powers-that-be didn't want to alarm the public by telling them the truth."

"Which was?"

"That an alien entity known as the Great Intelligence had attacked the city, and was using the Tube as its base."

Liz couldn't help but laugh. "Oh, really, Brigadier, what nonsense!"

He turned to glare at her. "I was _there_, Miss Shaw. Are you going to accuse me of lying again?"

"You don't seem to have any qualms about lying to the Press and the public," she retorted, "Why on earth do you expect me to believe such a ridiculous story?"

"You've signed the Official Secrets Act," he said, his expression straight, his voice sincere, "They haven't."

Liz was beginning to feel that she'd stepped into the pages of Alice in Wonderland – except that there'd been something about the look in the Brigadier's eyes when he'd said that he was there… something that, just for a moment, spoke of horror and loss. She looked out of the window, struggling to reconcile the busy normality of London's outskirts with the incredible tale she had just heard.

"You said there were _two_ attempted invasions?"

He nodded. "Last year there were photos in the papers of silver robots on the steps of St Paul's."

"Brandishing their ray guns," she said, recollecting the story, "As I recall, that was a hoax perpetrated by a bunch of students for their rag week. They were interviewed on television confessing all, if I remember correctly."

"They were interviewed, yes," said the Brigadier, "But they weren't students. They were the youngest UNIT recruits I could find, dressed in civvies and carefully briefed on what to say to the media. _That_ was the hoax. The robots – or cybermen as we call them – were quite real. And very, very deadly."

"So where are we going now?" said Liz, trying to keep the cynicism out of her voice and not succeeding, "All I got from your end of the phone conversation was something about someone being found near a police box. I'd hardly have thought that heralded an alien invasion."

The Brigadier's mouth quirked in amusement. "Not an invasion, no. But if the man they've found is who I think it is – who I hope it might be – then the word 'alien' applies. That scientist I mentioned who helped us out with the Intelligence and the cybermen? He had a sort of time machine that looks like a Police Box. That's why I told my Captain to put a guard on it, and that's why we're going to the hospital to see who it is they've found."

Liz worked it out then, and began to laugh. "Oh, for heaven's sake! This is one of those TV set-ups, isn't it?" she said, looking around for the hidden camera, "Film the Cambridge Professor making a fool of herself, then put it on the telly?" She leaned over the empty front passenger seat and waved at the dashboard. "OK. Joke's over." She sat back and addressed the man playing soldier in the seat next to her. "Who wrote in? One of my students? I'll bet it was Worsley. Just because I marked him down on his last essay, the sneaky little swine. Wait till he takes his Finals!" She shook her head, annoyed with herself that it had taken her so long to figure it out. "I should have known from the get-go," she said, "I mean, that isn't even a real army uniform, is it? And you're good – I mean you really had me going for a while there - but you're much too young to be a Brigadier."

He looked vastly amused. Liz gave him a re-appraising once-over and decided that now she could get past the uniform he was really quite fanciable. Perhaps they could go for a drink later, once this farce had played itself out?

There was a chuckle from the front seat, and she saw the driver was grinning as he glanced in the mirror. "Will you tell her, sir, or shall I?"

"She'll find out soon enough, Norton," came the reply, "When we get to the hospital."

* * *

An hour or so later, Liz was back in the car. She sat in the front passenger seat and put her face in her hands. "It's real, isn't it?" she said, cringing as she remembered what she'd said about the uniforms. Not to mention the Brigadier. When she'd seen the cameras inside, her first thought was that she'd been right. But she'd quickly realised that there were just too many of them – there were too many soldiers saluting, too many cameras, too many reporters – and their attention had all been on the Brigadier. They hadn't taken any interest in her at all, probably hadn't even noticed her.

"It's real, miss," said the driver, sympathy in his voice, "But if it's any consolation, I didn't believe in alien invaders either, till I came up against the cybermen. I thought the whole UNIT thing was just a cover for funny stuff – you know, MI5 and that."

Liz took a deep breath and sat back. "That's a better theory than the one I came up with," she said.

He gave her a smile and started the car.

She gave herself a stern reminder that the handsome Brigadier was a trained killer, _and_ her new boss; then tried very hard to think about meteorites.


	2. Chapter 2

"And another thing…" Liz stood in the Brigadier's office, regaling him with a list of complaints about the laboratory, the equipment, and the accommodation she'd been allocated. "The towel – singular – in my bathroom is completely inadequate. It's worn, scratchy, and about the size of a flannel. The hot water takes an age to come through the system. There's no shelf for me to put my cosmetics, no toothbrush holder, and the mirror over the sink is cracked. The laboratory doesn't appear to have any heating, and the light in the fridge doesn't work. The…"

"Miss Shaw." He didn't shout, but there was enough authority in his voice to make her pause. He sighed, and shuffled the papers on the desk in front of him. "I've had a very trying morning already. Now, is there anything you need _right now_ for your analysis of those meteorite fragments I just brought in? Anything you don't have?"

"Heating," she said, stubbornly, "It's _freezing_ down there. And damp. Probably won't do your meteorites any good at all."

"I doubt that," he said, sitting back in his chair, "But I'll see what I can do." She saw his glance drop to the hem of her dress and she forced herself not to tug at it. "You _could_ wear something a bit warmer?" he suggested.

"Oh, never mind," she said, turning on her heel, "I'll turn on some Bunsen burners. They ought to have the place warmed up in about five days."

After ten minutes of wandering the corridors, trying to pretend that she knew where she was going, she found herself back outside the Brigadier's door. She had two options: keep wandering the corridors for all eternity, or admit she was lost. It was a close-run decision, but in the end she knocked on the door and went in.

"Um…" she started, as the Brigadier looked up from the papers he was signing. "I can't find the laboratory. All these corridors look the same."

He looked almost as amused as he had in the car when she'd made those foolish remarks about the uniforms and his age. "At least the walk around will have warmed you up," he quipped. Liz didn't think that was funny, and stood silently stewing with annoyance and humiliation while the Brigadier stood up and crossed the room to open the door. "Palmer," he said to the guard outside, "Take Miss Shaw to the laboratory."

"Yes, sir."

"By the way," he added, as Liz stepped past him into the corridor, "Have you eaten?"

"Excuse me?"

"Have – you – eaten?" He said it slowly, as though she was deaf, or hard of understanding.

"Well, since you mention it, no. Not since breakfast."

He nodded at the guard and told him to go via the canteen, then returned his attention to Liz. "The sandwiches are mostly edible - take some to the laboratory with you. But don't touch the corned beef."

He made it sound like an order.

* * *

Liz knew that eating the corned beef sandwiches had been a futile and unnoticed gesture of insubordination, but the small rebellion had made her feel that _some_ part of her life at least was still her own.

Unfortunately, she was now paying for her stubbornness with a bout of appalling heartburn, and she was furious with the Brigadier for being right, and with herself for not taking his advice.

It probably wasn't the best moment for him to wander down to the laboratory to find out what progress she'd made and, after taking a second to check who had walked through the door, Liz turned her attention determinedly back to the equipment she was setting up.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked.

She thought it was a stupid question. Of course he was. "Yes."

"Getting on alright?"

"Fine." At least the heating had come on – though, given the amount of hissing and juddering from the pipes earlier as they warmed up, it was probably touch and go as to whether it stayed on.

He followed her around the table as she continued to set up the next experiment, but she carefully avoided looking at him as she answered his questions. She wanted to stay angry with him and, if she reminded herself how attractive he looked, she might forget to be cross.

"Miss Shaw," he said, his voice quiet but firm, "I don't chase shadows." Liz was trying to concentrate on pouring liquid chlorine into a test tube when she felt him move closer. He was so near that his breath cooled the skin on the back of her neck as he spoke. It was very distracting.

She had to make a conscious effort to listen to what he was actually saying and, irked at her own reaction, she retorted with the sort of sassy backchat he was probably unused to: "No need to get tetchy."

"Well sometimes you can be very aggravating."

She was astonished. "_Me?_ What about you? You really believe in a man who's helped to save the world twice? With the power to transform his physical appearance?"

"I don't know yet. It may not be the same man."

"An alien who travels through time and space – in a Police Box?"

"It's not a Police Box. It just looks like one."

"_Really_?" Liz put the beaker down and threw up her hands. "He can travel through time and space, but he can't come up with anything more impressive than that to put his control circuits in? Apart from anything else, I should have thought it would be very uncomfortable, travelling around in a tiny cramped space like that."

The Brigadier smiled, and leaned back against one of the tables. "I can only tell you that on the last two occasions we met, the Doctor had two companions with him. They all travelled in the TARDIS together, and they all assured me that it was much bigger on the inside."

Liz shook her head, pityingly. "I can see why you needed a scientist on board here, Brigadier. You really don't have the first idea about physics, do you?"


	3. Chapter 3

Liz knew that she shouldn't have told General Scobie that the Police Box in the corner was really a space ship – especially when she didn't even believe it herself - but the temptation had been too great. The Brigadier had looked momentarily horrified, till Scobie had decided she was joking and had started to laugh. "Very good, very good. Sense of humour too, eh?" He'd turned to the Brigadier. "What is it really, Stewart?"

As the Brigadier turned his head away from the General to look at the police box, Liz saw him roll his eyes and bite his lip. She suspected that the General's repeated insistence on using only half his surname was beginning to wear on his nerves; but when he spoke, his voice was perfectly level: "It's just a prop we sometimes use on exercises, sir. We keep it in here because it's near the doors to the goods yard." He'd pointed at the double doors in the back wall, through which the TARDIS had been manoeuvred a few hours earlier – letting all the heat out of the room in the process.

Liz gave him a hard stare. For a man who had told her he was not in the habit of lying, he did an astonishingly good job of doing so. Scobie immediately lost interest in the police box and asked Liz a couple of infantile questions about her experiments instead.

"Yes, yes, well it sounds as though you know what you're doing," he said.

The Brigadier, to his credit, looked appalled and began to usher him out – but they hadn't reached the door before the General looked back at Liz and added, "Carry on, my dear!"

It took all Liz's self-control not to throw something at his head.

* * *

"Has he gone?" said Liz, the moment the Brigadier walked back into the laboratory alone.

"The General? Yes."

"Bloody man!" she fumed, "And you were no better, Brigadier – 'not _just_ a pretty face' indeed!"

He looked puzzled. "I'm sorry if I upset you, Miss Shaw, but allow me to point out that I myself found the General's implication that I employ any of my staff on the basis of their looks to be offensive. Would you mind explaining to me why you are annoyed that I told the General you also have a brain?"

Liz was momentarily lost for words. It hadn't occurred to her that Scobie had insulted the Brigadier's integrity as well as her own competence, but she had spent so many years fighting stereotyping that all she had heard were the words 'pretty face'. She realised he was waiting for an explanation and struggled to phrase one. "It's just… the words you used, it sounded patronising," she said.

"Oh." He blinked, looking no less puzzled than he had a few moments before, "Then what should I have said? Bearing in mind that the General _is_ my superior officer?"

She detected a faint note of humour in his voice as he added the last phrase, and couldn't help but smile at the idea of the Brigadier turning round and telling Scobie where he could stick his insults. "Actually," she admitted, "I don't suppose it would have mattered _what_ you said to the General, would it?"

He shook his head, his mouth betraying one of those faint almost-smiles he seemed to specialise in. "I could have fed him your file page by page. He still wouldn't understand that I selected you entirely on merit. I'm sorry."

"No." Liz realised she was so used to having to fight to be treated on equal terms that when someone had actually employed her purely on the basis of her record, she hadn't recognised it. "I'm sorry. I over-reacted."

Before he could respond further, the phone buzzed for attention and he crossed the room to pick up the receiver. "Lethbridge-Stewart," he announced then, after listening for a moment, barked, "Well you'd better get on and organise a search party, Captain, before _I _start organising transfers out of UNIT!" He slammed the phone down and spun around. "They've let him escape again! I am surrounded by idiots!" As Liz opened her mouth to protest, he moved across to stand next to her again and added, more quietly, "Present company excepted, obviously," and she turned back to her lab bench so that he couldn't see her smile.

"Oh well," he said, "At least he won't get very far."

* * *

_**[A/N: reviews = encouragement! Please feed the muse.]**_


	4. Chapter 4

Liz felt cold, and rubbed her arms as she sat at on a folding chair at a folding table in UNIT's mess tent, not far from the Seeleys' farm. A cool breeze blew through the tent's open flaps and around her legs, and she was beginning to wish she had taken the Brigadier's advice and worn something warmer – though she suspected that the chill she felt went deeper than a simple reaction to the drop in temperature as the sun went down.

In the space of few hours, she'd met a man with two hearts and an unidentifiable blood type; learned of the death of a soldier in a mysterious road accident; listened to a babbling and clearly terrified man talking about life-size plastic dummies attacking him; and then watched with her own eyes as the Brigadier had put several bullets into the chest of what looked like a shop-window mannequin – which had then run off! To top it all, Ransome, the poor man who had come to UNIT for help, appeared to have been abducted by the very people he'd wanted protection from.

"Good grief!" The Doctor, seated on her right, probed with a field-issue fork at the gelatinous mass on the plate in front of him. "What is this?"

"Lamb stew," said the Brigadier, who sat opposite her. He stirred the contents of his own plate for a moment, before stabbing at one of the grey-brown lumps with his fork and pulling it clear of the rest. He put it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and said, "Well, I've tasted worse. Tuck in while it's hot."

He proceeded to follow his own advice, but the Doctor dropped his fork onto his plate and pushed it aside. "Well, if _your_ army marches on its stomach, Brigadier, they're not going to get very far!"

"You haven't even tried it!" said the Brigadier. He had the air of an exasperated parent. "Nor have you, Miss Shaw."

"I'm not really very hungry," she said, "I… What was that thing you shot? What are we dealing with here? I don't understand any of this."

"I'm sorry." The Brigadier's voice sounded gentler than it had since she met him, and she glanced up in surprise – only to look away in a hurry when she found herself looking straight into his eyes. "You've had rather a lot to take in I'm afraid. I take this sort of thing so much for granted now that I sometimes forget how strange it really is. Try to eat something though – it'll be late when we get back to headquarters, there won't be anything on offer except cocoa and left-over sandwiches."

Liz nodded, and picked over the offering in front of her until she found a cube of what might have been potato. It didn't taste of anything much, so she washed it down with some tea and decided she might risk another mouthful. As she began to search her plate for more of the same, she heard the Brigadier address the Doctor:

"That walking shop dummy was obviously looking for the meteorite, or whatever it is, that Seeley found, so there's clearly a link of some kind," he said, "But are these things an actual invasion force? Some sort of vanguard? A signalling device? Should we be expecting more of them?"

"I really don't know," said the Doctor, "Not without a thorough examination of the thing we found." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't think it's like anything we've come up against before though. If it was a single entity like the Great Intelligence, there'd have been no need to send so many. The same thing applies to the control device that Vaughn was using to work with the cybermen."

Liz saw the Brigadier's chin come up as the Doctor spoke. "You remember all that then?" he said.

The Doctor nodded. "Some of it. It's all a bit jumbled but… yes." He nodded, as though to himself, then sat forward in his chair, his expression earnest. "I remember that you trusted me when others didn't… "

"I still do," said the Brigadier. "Really, Doctor, do you think you'd be here if I didn't believe that you are who you say you are?" He put his fork down on his empty plate, took a long draught from the mug of tea in front of him, and added, "There is one thing though. What happened to McCrimmon? And that clever young girl, what was her name? Zoe?"

"They were sent back where they came from," said the Doctor, sadly, "They won't even remember me, the Time Lords saw to that." He sighed. "Ah well. At least _I_ remember _them_. That's something, I suppose."

"It's hard to believe that anyone could forget _you_, Doctor," said the Brigadier, "Whatever face you're wearing." He put his mug down, looked at his watch and got to his feet. "Anyway, if you've both finished eating, we'd better get going. By the way, Doctor, your quarters should have been sorted out by the time we get back."

"'_Quarters'_?" The Doctor sounded horrified. "Good heavens, I don't want quarters! I want to get on with examining that sphere."

Liz nodded, though she had to smother a yawn as she did so. "Me too."

"No, Miss Shaw, _you_ will get some rest. In my experience, humans think better if they've had a good night's sleep." The Brigadier was already leading the way to the car, and Liz saw his driver hurriedly detach himself from a knot of fellow-privates and rush over to open the doors for them.

"Don't tell me what to do, Brigadier!" Liz fumed as she slid into the back seat next to the Doctor. "If I want to work on that sphere with the Doctor, I shall do exactly that."

"No you won't." His voice was annoyingly calm.

"Oh really? Give me one good reason why not."

"I'll give you two. First – you are now a member of UNIT, I'm your commanding officer, and I just gave you an order; and secondly – " He sat forward in his seat so that he could turn far enough to see her " – you know I'm right."

She did know. Just as she knew he had been right about aliens, unexplained threats to earth security, and even that wretched corned beef sandwich, damn him. Folding her arms, Liz scowled with annoyance, and directed her gaze out of the window as the car moved off.


	5. Chapter 5

Liz released Hibbert's rather limp farewell handshake and climbed into the car, disappointed that their visit to the Plastics Factory hadn't yielded any clues. In the front seat, the Brigadier was already on the radio and she wondered what he'd reported back to HQ. "Make it half an hour," he was saying, "I'll be at Headquarters by then."

He signed off, but didn't offer any explanation to his passengers. Liz supposed they would find out what it was about in due course, if it was something they actually needed to know. "Well, that all sounded very plausible," he said, as the car moved off.

"You mean you believed him?" Liz was astonished. Surely he wasn't going to take Hibbert's glib explanations at face value?

"Of course I didn't." The Brigadier glanced over his shoulder as he spoke. "If he'd had nothing to hide, he'd have had someone show us round, wouldn't he? As it was, he couldn't get rid of us fast enough."

"And showed us the door himself, just to make sure we'd gone," said the Doctor. "Personally, I'd have liked to have taken a peek at that room Ransome told us about – the one where he said he was attacked."

"Well, it was never very likely that we were going to get much co-operation," said the Brigadier, "But it's always useful to get a look at the layout of a place."

"In case you need to rush in with your pop guns?" said the Doctor. "Fat lot of use they'd be, if that thing we encountered yesterday is anything to go by."

"Then perhaps you could come up with a weapon that _will _be of use? After all, we've got a complete sphere now for you to test."

The Doctor looked across at Liz. "The military mind-set, my dear – 'how do I kill it?' Not 'what can I learn from it?' or 'Can we reason with it?'"

"I don't recall your being overly concerned with learning from the cybermen, Doctor," said the Brigadier, "Or reasoning with the Great Intelligence for that matter."

"I was hoping to learn from the Intelligence, Brigadier, remember? If only Jamie hadn't… oh well, spilt milk as you humans are so fond of saying."

The Brigadier leaned back in his seat. "Doctor, whatever that walking mannequin was – and whatever that glowing globe thing is – I'll be happy to negotiate terms for their surrender at any time."

The Doctor made a "hmmph" noise in his throat, that indicated he knew exactly what the likelihood of an alien surrender was, and Liz looked out of the window to hide her smile. When she'd reached her quarters the previous evening, she'd been pleasantly surprised to discover that a new mirror, a shelf and a toothbrush holder had all been installed in her bathroom, together with a set of fluffy white towels of various sizes. The Brigadier might not always appear to be taking notice of what was said, but he clearly did listen, and she was sure the Doctor was well aware of that.

The gasometers behind King's Cross loomed, and Liz realised they would be at UNIT HQ very shortly. Over breakfast, snatched in the laboratory before they were whisked off to the Factory, she had learned that the Doctor had already hooked the sphere up to various electronic testing devices, and now she was eager to get back there to discover what sort of readings had been registered during their absence.

That reminded her of another sort of absence, and she felt a little guilty for not remarking on it earlier. "We didn't see any sign of poor Mr Ransome at the factory," she said, as she climbed out of the car and fell into step beside the Doctor.

"We should have gone there yesterday, as I suggested," said the Doctor, his glare directed at the Brigadier's back.

The Brigadier waited till they'd all got into the lift and it had started its descent before he replied. "Doctor, as I explained to you at the time, we can't just rush in to a place like that without the necessary authority. The only thing to do was make an appointment through the usual channels – we were lucky to get in there as early as we did."

"But we didn't really learn anything," said Liz. The lift stopped and they stepped into the corridor, and made their way towards the lab. "I mean, we none of us believed Hibbert's story, but it's hardly grounds for going back there with your troops, is it?"

"No." The Brigadier stood back and let the Doctor rush ahead of him into the laboratory. "But I saw something that _does _give me due cause."

Liz had been following the Doctor across to the bench that held the pulsing alien sphere, but halted as the Brigadier spoke, and turned around. "Oh? What?"

He leaned on his swagger-stick, which he'd placed vertically on the table next to them, and Liz wondered whether this was a casual as he ever got.

"While we were waiting outside Hibbert's office, someone was watching us from the other side of the frosted glass door in the corridor," he said. "It was the man who led the raid on the hospital. I recognised him from the photograph."

"What will you do now?" she asked.

"I'll put a call through to General Scobie. If I can get his authority I'll surround the place and raid it."

The Doctor, who had been leaning over the EEG machine attached to the sphere appeared not to have been listening. "Hey, come over here you two," he called, "Look at this."

Liz was astounded by what he'd discovered. The device indicated that there was some form of intelligence inside the globe. As the Doctor began to speculate about whether it was possible to communicate with whatever was, the phone buzzed and the Brigadier stepped across to answer it.

"Your call to General Scobie, sir," a voice announced, and Liz guessed that this was what he had radioed for from the car.

From what she could gather from the Brigadier's end of the conversation, it seemed that his request for a raid on the factory was being given due consideration, so she was surprised when he followed his final "Thank you, sir," by putting the receiver down with rather more force than was necessary. As he turned, Liz heard him mutter, "I swear, if he calls me 'Stewart' just once more…"

"Don't take any notice, old chap," said the Doctor, "In my experience, Generals don't take kindly to subordinates being more highly decorated than they are themselves. It's just Scobie's way of venting his jealousy, that's all."

The Brigadier cleared his throat and looked down at his boots for a moment, obviously embarrassed. "Yes, well… uh, anyway, the General's coming over. He's agreed to give me his support to raid that factory, so I'd better go and get things organised at this end," and with a nod of acknowledgement he turned and left the room.

Liz turned to the Doctor, surprised by what he'd said, and amused by the Brigadier's reaction to it. "Is he really? Highly decorated, I mean?"

The Doctor straightened up from where he'd been leaning over the glowing globe. "My dear Liz, do you think those ribbons on his chest are just there to brighten up his uniform?"

"No, of course not, but… well, he's too young for the Second World war isn't he, or Korea. I thought they were just campaign medals for Suez or Aden or something."

The Doctor sighed. "You still haven't grasped the scale of the danger that UNIT has to deal with, have you?" he said, "They don't give out Distinguished Service Orders for turning up at the office, Liz. As for the CMG – that's usually a civilian honour, but it is very occasionally awarded to military officers for special services to the Crown. I imagine that Lethbridge-Stewart got his for dealing with that unfortunate business with the Yetis on the Underground."

Liz's respect for the Brigadier climbed a few more points. "What does CMG stand for anyway?" she asked.

"Officially? The Cross of St Michael and St George," said the Doctor, "Unofficially? 'Call Me God'."

Liz giggled. "No wonder the General's annoyed."


	6. Chapter 6

"Well, this is a perfect end to a perfect day," said Liz, as she followed the Doctor through the door that was being held open for them by one of Madame Tussaud's security guards.

After the Brigadier's optimistic conversation with Scobie, everything had gone wrong: she'd overloaded a circuit on one of the electronic control boxes, Scobie had called back to renege on his promise to back the raid on the factory, the Brigadier had spent a long and (at the last phone report) fruitless day trying to see the Home Secretary and (also according to the last call) Captain Munro had blotted what was left of his copybook by handing their one and only alien sphere to the General. Now, to top off an extremely frightening evening in a dark Tussaud's gallery, with moving mannequins for company, Liz and the Doctor had been stopped by security on their way out.

"Next stop the Police Station, I suppose," she said, looking around for somewhere to sit.

They were in a small stockroom, and she perched on a cardboard box while the Doctor leaned an elbow on one of the metal shelves that stood against the wall.

"You got it, doll," said the guard – who would certainly have dropped where he stood if the glare Liz directed at him had had any effect.

"My good man, it must be perfectly obvious that we're not stealing anything," said the Doctor, "Short of carrying one of your waxworks out of here on a stretcher, how could we?"

"Then what were you doing sneaking around the place at this hour?" said the guard. "If you'd got locked in accidentally, you only had to shout, or make your way to the main entrance. We'd have found you hours ago and let you out. So you can't be up to no good, can you?"

"Oh dear." The Doctor scratched an ear as he thought for a moment, then tried again. "It is rather difficult to explain, I'm afraid…"

"Yeah, I thought it might be!"

"… but we do have a perfectly legitimate reason for being here." He turned to Liz. "Do you have a notebook, Liz – something to write on?"

Liz opened her handbag and scrabbled around for the notebook she carried in readiness to jot down those brilliant ideas that always arrived when she was miles away from the nearest laboratory. "Here."

The Doctor took it, flicked through it, gave a couple of random nods and a 'dear me, no', then scribbled on a fresh page with a pen he'd pulled from his jacket pocket. Ripping out the page, he proffered it to the security guard. "Before you telephone the police, would you please call this number, and ask for Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart?" he said. "If the Brigadier still isn't back from the Home Office, then Captain Munro will do. Just tell them where we are, would you?"

The guard hesitated, and the Doctor took a step forward. "Oh, come on, everyone gets one phone call don't they? You can call this number, or the police can, but I assure you that if the police do, they won't be happy with you for wasting their time."

The guard took the paper and looked at it. "Brigadier, did you say?"

"Brigadier," said the Doctor, authority in every syllable. "Lethbridge-Stewart. Or Captain Munro. And do be quick about it, there's a good chap."

Shaking his head in bemusement, the guard backed out, and Liz heard the key turn in the lock. "I suppose it could be worse," she said, "At least there's a light in here."

"And if worse comes to worst," said the Doctor, pulling a toothbrush-sized tool from his pocket, "I'll use the sonic screwdriver to unpick the lock. But I don't think it'll come to that."

"I hope you're right," said Liz. "Typical security – half a waxworks display marches out without anyone noticing, but you and I get stopped, searched, and locked up like a couple of common criminals."

"Yes." The Doctor adjusted his cloak and sat down on a box next to her. "I wonder where they all went, those facsimiles? There must be a back way out somewhere, I suppose."

"Probably through the Chamber of Horrors," said Liz, unable to repress a shudder as she remembered their tour through there earlier in the day. The idea of going down there in the dark was terrifying – especially so since she had seen so many mannequins on the move. "Doctor – do you really think that guard will call the Brigadier?"

He thought for a moment. "Yes, I think so. Probably ex-army himself, I expect. Ex-services of some kind anyway. He won't want to risk _not _calling." He sat back, and picked up a copy of the Visitors' Brochure from a pile on the shelf beside him. "Well, really," he said, as he turned the pages, "That looks nothing at all like Louis XIV. Of course, when I met him, he was younger…"

* * *

The young lieutenant who arrived to fetch them half-an-hour later could barely contain his amusement. Every time the car stopped at traffic lights, he would start chuckling again, oblivious to Liz's frosty silence and the Doctor's impatient sighs.

She was glad to get back to UNIT HQ – though her relief lasted only until they walked into the Brigadier's office, to be greeted by a grinning Captain Munro, and a smirking CO.

"Next time," said the Brigadier, before either Liz or the Doctor could say anything, "Make sure you get my written authority first."

"Look, never mind about that," said the Doctor "It's the facsimiles, Brigadier, they're moving. They've just left the waxworks."

Liz chimed in, emphasising the need to do something immediately. "We've got to act now, Brigadier, or it will be too late. By tomorrow…" She hesitated, as she realised she had just given him what sounded like an order.

"By tomorrow they'll be in key positions all over the country," said the Doctor, picking up her cue. "You've got to move against that factory now!"

The Brigadier, who had been leaning back against the edge of his desk while he listened, straightened up and folded his arms. He seemed completely unfazed by being bossed around by two civilian subordinates. "Move against them with what?" he said. "They're clearly immune to bullets, and I can't fire bazookas inside the building. What do you suggest? Slingshots?"

The Doctor rubbed his chin as he thought. "I'll try and rig something up," he said, "We've got the readings we took earlier as a guideline, I should be able to extrapolate what we need from there. Though it is a pity we don't have that globe any more to experiment on."

"Yes." The Brigadier weighted that lone word with a wealth of meaning as he looked across at Munro, and Liz had a feeling that the Captain would not have cause to grin for too much longer.

"I'll help," she said to the Doctor, then turned immediately to the Brigadier, "And don't tell me to get some sleep! There are… creatures wandering about out there, trying to replace people with… with _plastic_. I'm not going to leave everything to the Doctor and trot off to my room like a good little girl." Besides, the memory of those 'dummies' coming to life in the dark gallery would likely haunt her dreams for some time. Despite her resolve, she shivered a little.

"Alright, Miss Shaw. I don't suppose you'd sleep too well anyway, after the evening you've had," said the Brigadier, and Liz once again found herself startled by his perception. He gave them a nod of dismissal. "Keep me posted," he said. "I want to know the instant you've got something we can use."

* * *

_**[A/N: Thanks for the kind reviews so far. Feedback always welcome!]**_


	7. Chapter 7

Liz glared at the Brigadier as he entered the laboratory with a brisk "Good morning!" at exactly 6.32am. He looked rested, shaved, groomed and raring to go, and Liz hated him for having the audacity to look that good at such a ridiculous hour of the morning.

All she wanted to do was sleep for a week, but his first words reminded her that she had to keep going somehow. Crossing to the bench where the Doctor's strange electronic contraption sat, he frowned down at it for a moment, and said: "Is this it?"

"I suppose you were expecting some sort of laser cannon, or a nice neat neutron grenade you could throw?" said the Doctor. He wagged a finger in admonishment. "Too many Flash Gordon serials at the Pictures when you were a child, Brigadier, that's your trouble! Or was Dan Dare more in your line?"

The Brigadier opened his mouth to retort, but the Doctor pressed on: "I know it doesn't look much, but this really is our best chance. It's a sonic based… oh, never mind the details, you won't understand them anyway. All you need to know is that it has a very limited range. We need to get into that factory, and find that room that Ransome told us about."

"Yes, I rather expected that. I've already been to the communications room – told them to put our support platoons on standby." The Brigadier sat on the edge of the bench and rested his swagger-stick across one leg. "The trouble is, I _still_ don't have any official backing to do this! I put a call through to Geneva last night, but no-one's got back to me yet."

"Does that mean we've just got to sit here? Letting those things take over the country while you wait for written orders in triplicate?" Liz was appalled. Surely he could see that something like this was more important than the chain of command?

"Miss Shaw, if it comes down to a choice between saving my career or saving the planet, I hope I know where my duty lies," he said, and she felt immediately ashamed of herself for having doubted him. "Now, perhaps you could tune in that radio over there, find out if there have been any reports of odd happenings yet?"

"Yes, of course."

As she turned to switch the radio on, the phone buzzed for attention, and she heard boots on concrete as the Brigadier stepped across to answer it. As Liz turned the tuning dial to station after station, getting nothing but noise and static, she listened to the Brigadier's end of the conversation. It didn't sound good.

"Are you sure?" he said, his voice tense, "Get on to the police, man. Try the army! Well keep trying!"

He slammed the phone down and turned to face them, the decision on whether or not to act clearly made.

"It's started, hasn't it?" said the Doctor, quietly

The Brigadier's voice was quiet, but the message he conveyed was terrifying. "Yes – all over the country. Window dummies coming alive. Police stations, barracks, communications centres…"

"The radio's dead as well." Liz switched it off. There was only one thing to do now: hope that the Doctor's 'make do and mend' weapon actually worked.

* * *

_**[A/N: Please keep the feedback coming! It encourages me to write more :-) ]**_


	8. Chapter 8

"You can switch off, I think, now Liz!" As the Doctor disentangled himself from the dead Nestene, Liz deactivated the device. Her hands were shaking and it took her a moment before she could stand up and go through to the factory floor. See smiled as she saw that the Doctor appeared to be unhurt, but the sight of Channing's remains, and the limp tentacles hanging from the tank behind the Doctor made her feel momentarily queazy. If those things had succeeded…

"Don't look so glum," said the Doctor, making his way across to her and collecting her in a hug, "We did it!"

He was right, she realised. They'd triumphed – _science _had triumphed - and a little celebration was surely in order. "Let's go and tell the Brigadier!"

"If this thing worked properly, he already knows," said the Doctor. But he gave her a smile, straightened his clothes and followed her back down the metal stairs to the doorway where they had entered the factory.

Liz stopped for a moment at the top of the external steps, admiring their handiwork – so many plastic forms in overalls lay motionless on the ground. Then she realised that not all the motionless bodies were plastic, and not all of them were in overalls: there were soldiers down there too, broken, bleeding, some of them quite clearly dead. She heard the Brigadier in the distance yelling "Medic!" and charged down the steps.

UNIT's commanding officer was on his knees beside one of the fallen soldiers, and Liz wondered for a moment where his jacket was, till she realised he was using it to try to staunch the blood pumping from the Private's stomach. "Let me," she said, dropping to her knees opposite the Brigadier. She lifted the blood-soaked tunic to see how bad the damage was, and knew in an instant that there was nothing she or anyone else could do. She pressed the tunic back, glanced up, and met the Brigadier's gaze. She realised she didn't need to say anything: he already knew.

But he turned his attention to the young Private and, as Liz made a futile attempt to stem the bleeding, she heard him say, "You're in luck, Turner. No mere field medic for you – you get a proper Doctor to fix you up."

"Aye, and a pretty one too at that." Turner's voice was weak, shaky, and Liz marvelled at the human capacity to focus on trivia even at times of extremity.

"Don't let her hear you say that!"

Liz snapped her head up, in time to catch the Brigadier's force a smile and a wink at the soldier, and felt annoyed with herself for being annoyed. The Brigadier was just trying to take the lad's mind off the pain, make him believe that everything would be alright.

But Turner, it seemed, wasn't fooled.

"Sir?"

"Yes, Turner?"

"I'm not going to make it, am I?"

"Just lie quiet, Private, and let the doctor do her job."

"No… it's alright… it's just…" The soldier's right hand, bloodied where he had clutched at his wound, found the Brigadier's right arm, slid to his wrist, then held on to his hand. "In my locker – there's a ring. For my girl." His voice was growing weaker, but Liz could hear the determination in his whisper, and she turned her head away, not wanting him to see that her eyes were getting moist. "Please see she gets it, sir. Don't send it to my folks, they don't like her. But I want… Mary… to have it."

"I'll see to it, Alan," she heard the Brigadier say, quietly. "I promise."

"Thank you, sir." All the tension went out of the body beneath Liz's hands, and she sat back. There wasn't anything anyone could do for him now.

She watched, biting her lip as the Brigadier pulled off his beret, eased the soldier's hand to the ground, and closed the staring eyes.

"'Thank you, sir'," he muttered, "I send him into a battle that gets his insides blown away, and his last words are 'thank you, sir'." He stood up, smearing the other man's blood across his forehead as he tried to rub the sweat away, and shook his head. "It doesn't make sense." He looked across at Liz for a moment, then back down at the body at his feet. "It never does."

Liz dashed a hand across her eyes and stood up, trying to think of something to say. A few days ago she had thought that he was joking when he spoke of alien invasions and battles to save the earth. Now, it was all too real. "None of this was your fault…"

"Doesn't make it any easier." He took a deep breath, straightened up and yelled, "Benton!" Then, as footsteps pounded up behind him he said, without turning, "Stretcher parties, sergeant. See to it."

"Yes, sir."

Benton saluted, but the Brigadier was already moving away. Liz saw that he was heading towards the stairway where the Doctor was wandering about with the device he'd told her was a 'sonic screwdriver' and, with a last respectful glance at the body of young Private Turner, she followed.

* * *

_**[A/N: Please do leave a review – otherwise I don't know if you're still enjoying this!**_

_**Brigadier fans might also want to check out the new forum – link via my profile :-) ]**_


	9. Chapter 9

"Smith," said the Doctor, as he stood in front of his TARDIS in the corner of the laboratory, "Doctor John Smith."

The Brigadier braced his hands on his hips. "Really, Doctor, you must think I was born yesterday!"

The Doctor chuckled and rubbed his chin, looking over at Liz and giving her a warm smile before returning his attention to the other man. "Well, compared with the number of centuries I've notched up, you pretty much _were_ born yesterday," he retorted – but before Liz could decide whether he was being serious or not, he checked himself and cleared his throat, as though realising anew that UNIT and its CO were his only hope of getting the facilities he claimed to need. "Look, I can't tell you my name," he said, "I can't tell anyone my name. It's a Time Lord thing. You wouldn't be able to pronounce it anyway, let alone spell it. Unless you know High Gallifreyan?"

The Brigadier folded his arms. "Well," he said, "I can't make you tell me. 'John Smith' it will have to be. " Liz heard him sigh before he added: "I suppose I'll have to make up a date of birth for you too?"

"Well, no-one would believe the real one," said the Doctor, "Even if it meant anything in earth terms."

The Brigadier glanced round at Liz. He'd lost that bleak look he'd had after the battle, she was pleased to see. No doubt the shower, the clean uniform and the hot, sweet tea had helped; so had his 'negotiation' with the Doctor. Now, he said, "What do you think, Miss Shaw? Armistice Day? It's an easy date to remember, and I think the age will look about right."

"11/11/18?" said Liz, looking the Doctor up and down. "Yes, I think that would do."

"But that would make me…. Well, really!" huffed the Doctor, "I'm really quite spry for my age, I'll have you know."

"Yes," said the Brigadier, his voice deadpan. "I remember the spry way you ran from those cybermen last year."

"Me? Run away? Don't be ridiculous, that was my former self. You can't compare…"

The laboratory door swung open just then, and Sergeant Benton strode across to the Brigadier and stamped to attention. "Sir!"

"At ease, Benton. What is it?"

"I checked Turner's locker, sir, like you asked. I've put most of his belongings in the bag for his next-of-kin, but I think this was what you asked about?" From his pocket, Benton pulled a small blue box, and gently opened it up. A solitaire diamond on a gold band winked up at them from the velvet lining.

Liz put her tea mug down, and swallowed hard to fight back sudden tears. Here they were celebrating, and those poor soldiers weren't even cold.

The Brigadier nodded, and took the box, flipping the lid shut and tucking it into his trouser pocket. "Anyone know who this girl is, Benton, or where she lives?"

The sergeant shook his head. "Don't know where she lives, sir. But we know where she works. Mary's the barmaid at the Dog and Duck." He paused. "It's in Covent Garden."

Liz had no idea what had just happened, but she sensed a sudden tension, felt the atmosphere change with the weight of some unspoken distress. The Brigadier raised his head and looked first at the Doctor, then at Benton, who straightened his shoulders and said, "I'll take it, sir, if you like. I'm going that way…"

"No, Benton, I'll go. I made a promise." The Brigadier glanced at his watch. "I'll go this evening, just after opening time. I should get started now on those letters for the next-of-kin." He turned to the Doctor. "I'll send Corporal Bell along, Doctor, to get the forms filled in for your papers. Don't give her a hard time." Turning to Liz, he added, "As for you, Miss Shaw, I suggest you take the rest of the day off – catch up on all that sleep you missed out on last night." Then, with a "Come along, Benton," he picked up his swagger-stick from the table, and made for the door.

Liz waited till the door had swung shut, then leaned back against the table and looked across at the Doctor. "Covent Garden?" she said, "Why should Covent Garden bother him so much?"

"Ah." The Doctor scratched an ear, pulled out a chair and flicked his cloak over one shoulder at he sat down with the air of a man about to tell a long story. "Well, when I first met the Brigadier, he was a Colonel in the Scots Guards, there was no such thing as UNIT, and in the space of a few hours he had to come to terms with a disembodied alien Intelligence, and robotic yetis running amok on the underground. He led a team of squaddies to Covent Garden to try to get my TARDIS – total leap of faith on his part, he had no reason to trust a word I said. The Colonel – the Brigadier – was the only one who came back. The only one." He sighed. "If he hasn't been near Covent Garden since, who can blame him?"


	10. Chapter 10

They took a taxi to the Strand. The Brigadier had said the he didn't need Liz or the Doctor to accompany him on his errand, but she suspected that he was secretly a little relieved when they had both insisted on tagging along.

Liz had taken a nap for a few hours after lunch and, although still tired, she at least felt that she'd last the evening without drifting into unconsciousness. The shops were closing, commuters were walking west towards Charing Cross, double-decker buses and black cabs hooted as they vied for space on the road. It would have seemed like a perfectly normal evening in London, if not for the boarded up windows of the clothes shops, and the blobs of green ooze in the gutter, where the mannequins had fallen.

"Can't beat the 'Blitz Spirit', eh Brigadier?" said the Doctor, as he stepped out of the way of a portly man in pinstripes who was heading for the railway station at a brisk trot. "Patch the windows, sweep up the glass, pop the dummies in the back of a truck, and everything's back to normal."

"Where _are_ all the dummies?" said Liz, as they set off up Bedford Street, "There must have been thousands of them."

"Oh, I put Captain Yates onto the clean-up operation," said the Brigadier. He'd changed into civvies before they left UNIT headquarters – black trousers, blue shirt, regimental tie and grey jacket - and she tried to ignore the part of her brain that told her he looked very dashing. "He's not been with us long, but he seems to have a decent grasp of logistics. He's been liaising with the local councils, requisitioning dust carts and such. Seems to be going well so far."

They reached the top of the road and turned right towards St Paul's Church and the main piazza.

"Are you alright, Alistair?"

Liz looked around when she heard the Doctor's quiet question, and saw that the Brigadier had stopped on the corner to look across the area where the market had once been.

He nodded. "Yes. It looks different now. I don't think the warehouse…" He paused, took a breath. "I don't think it's here any more." He shook his head, as though to clear it of bad memories, and pointed north. "The pub's that way, I think. Come on."

* * *

The carpet in the Dog and Duck smelled new, but the oche and dartboard to the left of the bar gave the place a schizophrenic feel, as though it hadn't quite made up its mind whether it wanted to bring back its pre-refurbishment clientele, or reach out to the opera-goers and the well-heeled shoppers who frequented the upmarket shops that were springing up in place of the old flower market.

At 6pm, it was quiet – too late for the shoppers, too early yet for the theatre and opera audiences – and they picked out a corner away from the window, with a high wooden screen behind the padded benches. Liz and the Doctor slid onto the benches, the Brigadier remained standing.

"What would you like to drink?" He said it with the weary resignation of a man anticipating having to order pineapple-and-lemonade, or something with a little umbrella in it.

Liz would have killed for a small white wine, but the devil in her made her determined to ask for something he wouldn't be expecting. "I'll have half a best bitter, please." She'd never tasted the stuff before, but felt amply rewarded for her adventurous choice by the look on the Brigadier's face.

"Doctor?" he prompted.

"I don't suppose they have a decent Burgundy?" said the Doctor, "Or a nice Bordeaux?"

The Brigadier sighed. "I'll ask," he said, and went across to the bar.

The Doctor was looking over Liz's shoulder, towards the window and the view beyond. "Fascinating," he said, "What a difference a few centuries can make to a place."

Liz was still finding it difficult to believe the time-travel part of the Doctor's story, but she made an effort to swallow her scepticism. "You mean you've been here before? In the distant past?"

"No," he said, "In the future. I'm afraid the Daleks will make a terrible mess of it a few centuries from now. Still.." - he patted her hand – "…nothing for you to worry about. They'll be forced to retreat. Eventually."

"That's a comfort," said Liz, dryly, wondering whether she should ask what 'daleks' were, and deciding she was better not knowing. She turned her attention to the bar as she heard the pop of a cork, and saw the barman fill a small wine glass from the bottle he'd just opened.

"There we are, sir," she heard him say, "A pint for you, 'alf a Best for your good lady, and a glass of red for your dad."

"Well, really!" huffed the Doctor, as Liz snorted with laughter.

"Come on, Doctor, if you're as old as you claim to be, you're old enough to be the Brigadier's _ancestor_, let alone his father," she giggled.

"That's hardly the point." He smoothed his cloak, and folded his arms. "Wretched Time Lords! I shall complain to the High Council next time I see them. Just because I didn't like any of the faces they offered me."

At the bar, the barman was handing the Brigadier his change.

"Thank you," said the Brigadier, "Tell me, is Mary going to be in this evening?"

The barman nodded. "She'll be in about seven," he said. "Friend of Alan's are you? I could tell you was military soon as you came in."

"It was Alan who sent me, yes," said the Brigadier, carefully. "I have a… message for her. If you wouldn't mind sending her over, when she arrives?"

"Yeah, alright squire, if it won't take long. We starts getting busy about seven-thirty so…"

"Actually, you might want to consider giving her the rest of the evening off." The statement was spoken quietly, and the Brigadier did nothing more than straighten up and rock on his heels, but he exuded an air of authority that screamed 'British Officer'.

Liz had stopped laughing. Next to her, the Doctor had sat forward, his sulks apparently forgotten.

"Oh, bloody 'ell. Don't tell me… Those sodding robots, was it?"

"I'm afraid so."

The cover story, by now all over the Evening Standard as well as the TV news reports, was that experimental robots designed for the military had been mistakenly delivered to retail stores and, when activated at a pre-set time, had automatically assumed an attack mode.

"Sodding scientists," said the barman, as he grabbed a cloth and worked off some of his anger on the bar top, "Mad, the lot of 'em."

The Brigadier delivered their drinks and slid into the seat opposite. "I wish I could tell him that it's scientists we all owe our lives to," he said.

"Well, you know the old saying," said Liz, "No good deed goes unpunished." She raised her glass and took a mouthful of beer. It was all she could do not to spit it straight back out, but good manners and stubbornness won out and she swallowed it down. Half a pint, she realised too late, was an awful lot of liquid to get through when you really didn't like it.

Next to her, the Doctor spluttered over his red wine, and gave it a doubtful sniff. "What is this? I'm sure it's been nowhere near France!"

"I believe it's Chianti," said the Brigadier, "And I could have bought my own vineyard for what I just got charged for it."

"You were robbed," said the Doctor, pushing the glass away.

With a sigh, the Brigadier reached across and pulled Liz's half-pint across to his own side of the table, then slid the wine glass in front of Liz. "I'll get you a glass of water, Doctor, hopefully that won't cost me the other half of this month's salary," he said, as he stood up again.

The Doctor nodded, thoughtfully. "Could you ask if they've got any peanuts?"

* * *

The cobbled surface of the piazza shone under the glow of the streetlamps as they stepped out of the Pub into the twilight. The bass thump of loud music was audible above the hum of distant cars, and the smell of beef and onions carried on the breeze.

"Poor girl," said Liz, her thoughts with the young woman for whom the landlord was solicitously calling a cab – at UNIT's expense. "Do you think she'll be alright?"

"I'll let Benton have her details," said the Brigadier, tucking the piece of paper with Mary's address into his pocket. "He can notify the girls in Personnel."

"But she's not a dependant," said Liz, "She won't have any money coming."

"No, but we can make sure she gets the moral support she'll be needing." He buttoned his jacket and turned to head across the Piazza back to the Strand. "UNIT looks after its own."

"Alistair." The Doctor stopped on the corner, and pointed north. "Surely it would be a shorter journey if we headed that way?"

The Brigadier flicked a glance at where he was pointing, met the Doctor's gaze for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, it would," he said, and resumed his course south.

The Doctor fell into step beside Liz as they followed. "He had to get all the way back to Goodge Street," he said, in an undertone. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "It's that way."


	11. Chapter 11

"Ah, Miss Shaw." The Brigadier looked up from reading through a file marked 'Top Secret' as Liz entered his office. "I've got your report on the Nestene incident here. Before I add it to the rest, I was hoping you might be able to supply a little more information about that device the Doctor rigged up?"

"Didn't he put the details in his own report?" Liz knew the Doctor had been told to provide one, and that he only agreed to do so when the Brigadier threatened to withdraw his new UNIT pass, his shiny yellow car, and access to the laboratory – including the TARDIS.

"This is the Doctor's report." He handed her a single sheet of foolscap paper, barely half-filled with type. "As you can see, it's not exactly a mine of information."

"Oh dear." It didn't take Liz many seconds to scan through the carefully-worded sentences. "He dismantled the device last week, I'm afraid. Said something about not wanting it misused by…" She paused. The exact wording had been 'gun-toting military buffoons'. She paraphrased. "… by the military."

The merest hint of a smile beneath his moustache indicated that he knew perfectly well what the exact wording had been. "Well, if you can recall the components he used, and the order he used them in, it would be tremendously helpful," he said, taking the page back from her and shuffling it into the folder. "What the Doctor said about those things being telepathic worries me. If they try another invasion, we'll need a way of dealing with them."

"I'll try," she said, "But it was over two weeks ago – and I was so tired by the time we finished putting it together I kept missing things. I'd look up, and he'd have three or four more wires in place."

"Anything you can remember will be an improvement on what we have at the moment," he said, closing the folder and pushing it aside, "Which is, effectively, nothing. I'm due to deliver the report to Geneva at the end of the week, do you think you could have something by then?"

She nodded. "I can write it up this afternoon," she said, "The Doctor's taking that car you got him for another test run, so I'll be glad of an excuse not to get in it again."

"Still tinkering with it, is he?"

"There are bits of engine all over the garage floor," she said, "And TARDIS components all over the laboratory. But don't worry – he hasn't forgotten the analysis you wanted of that Nestene gloop. We've got blobs of it bubbling, freezing, and being subjected to bacteria, chemicals and gases. The results will all be ready for your report by Friday."

"Good." He sat forward again, and she thought the meeting was at an end, but instead of the nod of dismissal that she expected, he said: "I'm sorry that you've ended up assisting the Doctor, rather than acting as my Scientific Adviser as I intended when I recruited you, Miss Shaw. I have made sure your salary equates to the original post." He pulled another file from the pile on the desk and flipped it open, and she realised it was her personnel file, the one he'd had in front of him on the day she arrived. "I will understand if you'd prefer to return to Cambridge," he said, leafing through the pages, "But… well, if the Doctor gets that contraption of his working, he could be gone again by the time I get back from Switzerland, then I'll have to start the whole process over again – and there really wasn't anyone else with your sort of qualifications."

Liz was touched at his courtesy in giving her the option, and flattered that he didn't think anyone else could do the job as well as she could. She had thought about going back to Cambridge – the Nestene were gone, the Doctor knew far more about, well, _everything_, than she could ever hope to – but… "I'd like to stay," she said, "For a while, at least. I've found out in the past few weeks that the universe is even bigger and stranger and more complex than I'd ever imagined. I could learn a lot from the Doctor too, if I can get him to trust me."

"Trust you? Surely he already knows enough to do that."

"Trust me as a scientist, I mean. At the moment I don't do much more than pass him test tubes and ask questions – I suppose he feels like an emeritus professor answering an 'O' level student. That's the way it feels from my end, anyway."

"You don't mind?"

"Only when he explains the things I know, as well as the things I don't. And that doesn't happen often. There's so much I don't know."

"I find that hard to believe." He glanced down briefly at her file, then smiled at her.

Liz reminded herself firmly that her decision to stay had been an entirely logical and reasoned one that had nothing to do with the way his eyes twinkled. "It's true."

"Well, I'm glad we'll have the benefit of all the things you _do _know for a while longer." He picked up a pen and jotted something on her file, then closed it and slid it underneath the 'Top Secret' one.

Liz stood up to go and he stood too. She hoped he wasn't going to open the door for her – that was something she could manage perfectly well on her own! "How long will you be in Geneva?"

"Ten days or so, I expect. I'll have to deliver the report, get their assessment, attend at least three meetings to explain the same things in three different ways, and then go to more meetings to justify my requests and recommendations for replacement personnel. Still, it's not all bad. Might get some ski-ing in, with any luck – and I don't have to clear Customs."

"Chocolates all round then?" she said, then went hot as she realised her slip. She'd meant to say 'duty frees' not chocolates! What was she thinking? That was the sort of item you asked lovers for wasn't it?

Fortunately, the Brigadier seemed oblivious to any impropriety. "Miss Shaw, the delivery of industrial-sized boxes of Swiss liqueurs to the typing pool is the only thing that stands between me and the abyss. I _always _bring chocolates."

He opened the door for her, and without a squeak of protest at his chauvinism, she hurried out.


	12. Chapter 12

"Sergeant, where's the Brigadier got to?" said Liz.

For the past fortnight, Benton had been pressed into service by the Doctor as a fetcher, carrier and general 'gofer', and Liz was quite sure it wouldn't have happened if UNIT's CO was around. She'd have thought he would have been back from Geneva by now.

Not that she cared. The British Library Reading Room was only a few streets away, her old stamping ground at KCL had yielded several evenings out with old friends, and she was learning more each day from her work with the Doctor at UNIT.

So she didn't care where the Brigadier was. She just thought that it was unfair on Benton that he wasn't around to intervene with the Doctor.

"Taken a week's leave, miss. He said to make sure nothing invaded the planet while he was away."

The Doctor chuckled. "We'll do our best," he said, "A 'Keep Out' sign, perhaps? Now, sergeant, if you could just pop over to the electrical stores again and get me a new voltage meter…?"


	13. Chapter 13

Liz suppressed a yawn, straightened up in her seat, and stole another glance at her watch. So far, the final debrief on the events surrounding the Nestene invasion – six weeks after the event itself - had been going on for over two hours. She was surprised the Doctor had managed to contain his impatience for the entire meeting – though from what she'd learned of him over the past month and a half, she guessed that he had rather enjoyed giving yet another second-by-second recap of his struggle with the tentacled monster.

"Right, I think that's everything," said the Brigadier, at last. He glanced at the young female Private on his left, "You'll get that all typed up for me by ten hundred hours tomorrow, MacKay?"

"In triplicate, as usual, sir." Then, as everyone began to shuffle papers and push chairs back from the table, she added, "Sir, while everyone's here, might I just confirm arrangements for this year's Children's Party?"

The Brigadier sat back in his chair and looked around the table to make sure everyone else had stopped what they were doing. "Go ahead, Private."

MacKay pulled a typed list of names from one of the folders in front of her. "For anyone who wasn't here last year," she began, glancing along the table in the direction of Liz and the Doctor, "The Children's Party is always on the second Friday in December, invasions permitting – so we only have three weeks to sort out the final touches."

"It's for all the kids of UNIT personnel," put in Benton, from his seat opposite Liz, "Including any who've lost their fathers in action."

Liz stared down at the statistics on the papers in front of her: In addition to Private Turner, ten other UNIT soldiers had perished at the plastic hands of the autons. She wondered how many of them had had children. "What is it you need to confirm, Private MacKay?"

"Well," said MacKay, consulting her list, "I have enough volunteers to put up the tables, the tree and the streamers. The caterers have been briefed. Sergeant Benton has volunteered to be Santa Claus again – thank you, sir – and the presents have all been selected and purchased. It's the entertainment we're a bit stuck with. We've had the Typing Pool routine for two years now, and it would be nice to have something different." She looked at Liz and the Doctor hopefully.

"Hmm." The Doctor scratched an ear, "I could do a few magic tricks, I suppose. If you think they'd enjoy that?"

"Oh, splendid!" MacKay scribbled on her list, looked up at Liz again. "Miss Shaw? Any hidden talents you might bring to the party? Singing? Dancing?"

When the subject of the party had been raised, Liz had had the horrible suspicion that she was about to be asked to help with the sandwiches. MacKay's suggestion was, if anything, worse. Benton was grinning, and she was fairly sure the Brigadier was smirking, though she avoided looking directly at him while she racked her brains to come up with an idea that would not involve her in anything too undignified. No-one would thank her for singing or dancing anyway. So… "I… suppose I could organise some party games," she ventured, "Musical chairs, pin the beard on the Santa, that sort of thing?"

"Marvellous." MacKay's pen got busy again then, after a last check down her list, she nodded. "I think that's everything, thank you!"

The Brigadier stood up, called a rather redundant "Dismissed" along the table, and headed for the door.

As it closed behind him, Liz moved across to MacKay, who was gathering folders and paperwork together, and said, "What about the Brigadier? You didn't ask him to contribute anything to the party!"

"Oh, don't you know?" said MacKay, tucking the folders under her arm and collecting up her pencils in the other hand, "We haven't found a way to wangle the children's presents onto the official accounts. So the Brigadier pays for them all."


	14. Chapter 14

"Good Lord," said Liz, looking around the crowded Church Hall and raising her voice to make sure she could be heard of the din of excited children, "I had no idea there'd be so many!"

"Oh, these are just the under-twelves," Private MacKay confided, "The teenagers get a separate meal and a disco, but they don't like too much adult supervision so I always leave that to Sergeant Benton to organise with a couple of junior squaddies."

Liz nodded, wondering which adult was currently supposed to be supervising the red-haired twins who were running around one of the circular tables, screaming at a pitch that threatened the glass in the windows. As MacKay moved away, clipboard and pen in hand, Liz felt a tug on the hem of her skirt, and looked down to find a small blonde girl gazing up at her. "Hello," she said, crouching down to be nearer the child's level, "I'm Liz. What's your name?"

"Kate." She still had her coat on and was clutching a shiny pink party hat in her left hand.

Liz guessed the girl couldn't be more than four, and looked around to see who she belonged to.

"Have you seen my daddy?"

_Oh, Lord_, thought Liz, _If she's one of the kids who's lost a father… what on earth do I say? _She stalled for a moment. "You haven't taken your coat off, Kate – here, let me help."

As she began on the buttons, Kate piped up again: "Mummy said to ask daddy to do my coat. Because she's not coming to the party. But I can't find him, and Uncle John –" she pointed across the room toward the door, where a casually-dressed Sergeant Benton was issuing every new arrival with a party hat and squeaker "- he said to ask you."

"Oh." Liz suspected that Benton had pointed in MacKay's direction and the child had been confused when the Private had moved away. "Well, sweetheart, what's daddy's name?"

Kate clearly had to give that some thought, and fixed Liz with a steady, serious gaze that looked somehow familiar. But while Liz was still figuring out who that expression reminded her of, the girl looked up, squealed "Daddy!" and launched herself at the tall figure who had appeared at Liz's side.

Liz straightened up, clutching the empty coat, and stared in astonishment as the Brigadier, wearing grey trousers and a blue crew-neck sweater, swept the child up into his arms. Laughing with evident delight, he planted kisses on Kate's cheek as she giggled and hugged his neck. "Hello, tiger!" he said, "You're early." He gave her another kiss before turning to Liz, still with that unfamiliar grin on his face. "Thank you for looking after her."

"That's alright, Brigadier." Liz glanced down at the coat she was holding, to force herself to stop staring at this casual stranger with the captivating smile, though her brain was stuck on 'repeat' – _He's married? He has a daughter? She calls Sergeant Benton 'Uncle John'?_ "Um… we'd only just met, really." She hefted the coat – Selfridges Pure Wool, she noticed – and added, "I'll go and hang this up. Have a lovely time, Kate."

* * *

Three hours later, Liz would gladly have exchanged her party hat for a tin helmet and ear defenders. The tables had been cleared of discarded hats, paper plates with crusts on, and plastic dishes with bits of trifle left in them, but had now acquired a coating of used serviettes, feeding bottles, crumpled wrapping paper from the prizes won so far, and assorted items of infant clothing. The children appeared to be as energetic as ever, running about and jumping up and down while the adults gathered themselves for the next event, and the high-pitched shouting and chattering was beginning to wear on Liz's nerves.

"Is it always like this?" she asked Private MacKay.

MacKay looked around at the devastation, an indulgent smile on her face as she watched Captain Hawkins' toddler playing with a torn sheet of the paper that had wrapped the 'Pass the parcel' prize. "Actually, I was just thinking that it's going much better than last year," she said, "Your party games have been a great hit – and the Doctor's magic tricks were amazing!"

Liz nodded. She suspected that the Doctor's magic tricks owed a good deal to Time Lord knowhow, rather than sleight of hand, but at any rate he had succeeded in making a roomful of excited children sit still and relatively quiet for more than five whole minutes. In its way, it was an achievement to rival the defeat of the Nestene. "What's next?"

Her question was answered by a deep "ho-ho-ho" from the direction of the main door, and a rotund white-bearded figure in a red suit stepped into the room, to be greeted by cheering, clapping and more jumping up and down. Plonking his sack on the table in the middle of the room, he waved his hands and called for everyone to sit down, then put a finger to his lips and said "Shhhhhhhh!"

Stillness descended, and Liz sank onto the piano stool and rubbed her forehead just over the left eye, where her head was starting to throb. "Thank you, Sergeant Benton," she murmured.

She had assumed that the Brigadier had set a strict budget for the presents – a few shillings each, perhaps for the small children, a little more for the older ones. But as Benton, in his Santa guise, began to hand them out, she realised that he must have paid at least four or five times as much as that. As more wrapping paper piled up on the tables and the floor, Lego, stickle-bricks, jigsaws, Corgi cars, soft toys, costume jewellery and children's card games abounded.

"Kate Lethbridge-Stewart," called Benton, holding out the last present, and shaking his sack to show there were no more in hiding. Liz smiled as the little girl politely thanked Santa before skipping back to her father, clutching a rectangular box wrapped in red paper with cartoon reindeers on it.

The was a squee of excitement as she pulled the wrapping off: "Look, daddy! 'noc'lars! Like yours!" She pulled a pair of yellow plastic binoculars from the cardboard box and looked through them, peering this way and that.

After a moment, the Brigadier gently pulled them away from her face, turned them around and handed them back to her. "Now try it," he said, and Liz saw the girl jump, then giggle with surprise as she found the object of her attention – the Doctor – looking much closer than she expected. She switched the glasses round the other way again and looked in Liz's direction, then turned them again and studied the ceiling. "They work much better outside," said the Brigadier, "Shall we take them to the park tomorrow?"

"Will you be home?"

He got to his feet, picked her up and kissed her cheek. "Yes. In fact, I'm coming home right now, with you. It's nearly your bedtime."

Santa had already positioned himself by the door, ready to say a personal goodbye to one and all, and there was a scraping of chairs and a last burst of conversation as everyone stood to collect children, presents, bags and coats. The Doctor, not to be outdone, strode across to stand next to Santa, and was making a great show of waving to all the children.

"Bloody cheek," Liz heard Private MacKay mutter, "Anyone would think they'd done all the hard work. Come on!"

She led the way across the emptying hall to stand next to the Doctor, and Liz followed. Already, she noticed, several young squaddies were making a start on clearing the rubbish. Three more were stacking the chairs.

"Thanks, everyone!" The Brigadier's voice echoed around the almost-empty hall. He was leading Kate by the hand, and Liz smiled as she saw that the little girl still had her party hat on and was wearing her new yellow binoculars over her coat.

As the Brigadier passed along the line, prompting Kate to say her 'thank yous' and adding his own, Liz turned her thoughts to a long soak in a hot bath, with a glass of wine on the side and a good book to hand.

She absolutely refused to think about how it would feel to kiss him.

* * *

_**[A/N: That's it for now. If there's enough demand, the moments in between 'The Silurians' episode will follow, but it may take a while!**_

_**Meanwhile, don't forget to check out the new Brigadier forum – link via my profile. ]**_


End file.
